


Little Fishes

by sigridir



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Awesome Molly Hooper, F/M, Fluff, Mycroft IS the British Government
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 02:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2211939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sigridir/pseuds/sigridir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly's reasons for liking Sherlock aren't as simple as they first appear. Close contact with the detective and others leads to a change of heart.</p><p>Short, shameless fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Brainy is the new sexy

Everyone thinks the reason that Molly Hooper fell for Sherlock is that he’s pretty.

It’s not true, of course. She’s not that shallow.

However, that’s not to say that she doesn’t appreciate Sherlock’s ‘transport’. After all, she enjoys looking as much as any other woman. She’ll gladly admit that his close-cut designer suits show off his trim form admirably and that the way his shirts (especially the purple one) pull across his chest draws her eyes. The killer cheekbones and stormy eyes are icing on a very tasty cake, and the swirl of his coat rounds off his Byronic image to perfection.

No, Molly Hooper fell for Sherlock when he stormed into the morgue for the first time and argued the then head of department into submission about a faulty autopsy. Listening to him tear apart a toxicology report made her weak at the knees. His frequent reappearances in her lab, where he conducted his experiments with a sure hand and the way that the D.I.s from Scotland Yard listened when he poured forth deductions just cemented her infatuation.

Molly’s kink is intelligence.

Her first proper relationship was with a postdoc at university, who has since gone on to be a rising star in the world of paediatric oncology. Greg Lestrade’s more mature charms attracted her devotion for a while when he swooped into the morgue on a murder investigation. Jim ‘from IT’ caught her eye because of his sharp wit and geeky credentials, waxing lyrical on IT security; and no-one doubts James Moriarty’s capabilities. Even poor Tom didn’t get her attention because he looked like Sherlock, despite everyone else’s assumptions. The fact that he was an economic modeller for a major investment bank with a PhD in game theory was his main attraction.

No-one has seemed to pick up on this fact, not even Sherlock himself. He seems to regard Molly’s crush as his due. Molly isn’t an idiot, despite what people seem to think. She knows that while Sherlock does value her in his unique way, he doesn’t like her in the way she wants him to. Although neither of them will admit it, Sherlock and John are locked in orbit around each other like a binary star system and the rest of the world is obscured by their brightness. Molly sees this, and privately admits defeat.

The day that James Moriarty’s face breaks onto every screen in the country turns Molly’s world upside down. She’s collected from the morgue by Greg with an escort of armed policemen and whisked off to Whitehall and into an 80s steel-and-glass monstrosity of a government building. Lestrade is still arguing with the receptionist and security guards when a pair of black limousines pulls up outside complete with a police escort. The doors open and out pour a group of people Molly is familiar with. John helps the heavily-pregnant Mary from one car, while from the other steps Sherlock. He’s followed by a tall man in a three-piece suit and an elegant brunette who is typing furiously on a blackberry. Molly knows the man with the receding hairline is Sherlock’s brother, having seen him briefly several times over the course of her acquaintance with Sherlock. The group are surrounded by men and women in serious suits and dark glasses, who rush the party inside.

The elder Holmes stalks across the foyer issuing orders into his mobile, Sherlock nipping at his heels like an annoyed terrier. The guards melt away and Molly and Lestrade are swept through the bulletproof glass doors at a nod. Molly, John and Mary are forced to jog to keep up with the long-legged Holmes brothers, who are still bickering about the likelihood of Moriarty’s genuine return even as a flotilla of junior civil servants trails in their wake.

They end up in what is obviously being commissioned as a war room. Molly sits in a corner, out of the way of technicians hastily setting up computers and telephones, wondering why she is here. The big screen making up most of the back wall flares into life with a map of London, along with multiple monitors scrolling information. There’s a young man with a shock of black curly hair and glasses directing the set up in consultation with Sherlock and his brother. After a short while Mary and John come to join Molly, as they’re made to feel like an obstruction, Mary sighing with relief as she props her feet on a spare chair.

Molly watches in rapt fascination as the operation is set up and starts moving like clockwork, all of it revolving around the lynchpin that is Mycroft Holmes. She’d been aware that Sherlock’s brother worked in government, she’d worked out he was pretty senior (after all, what ‘minor civil servant’ has a limo plus driver, a P.A. and a bespoke Savile Row wardrobe) and she’d even overheard Sherlock referring to him as his ‘archenemy’ (which had made her giggle) but she’d never expected this.

She sits enthralled at the other end of the boardroom-style table as Mycroft speaks first to the PM and then switches fluently between English, French, Russian, Arabic and Chinese for the next few calls. All the while, he is reviewing and scrawling notes with an expensive fountain pen on a constant stream of documents provided by the quietly efficient PA in the designer outfit. Sherlock is also working, feet on the table and a laptop balanced precariously on his knees but Molly scarcely notices now. There’s more than one animated debate as information flashes up on the screen. Molly watches breathlessly as Mycroft corrects Sherlock several times and the younger man’s demeanour slips ever closer towards ‘sulky teenager’. Mary whispers in Molly’s ear about the drama queen not liking to be upstaged, and the pathologist can’t help but snicker in agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Transcript from S03e01 'The Empty Hearse'  
> Taken from the end of Sherlock and Mycroft's game of Operation:
> 
> S: Can’t handle a broken heart? How very telling.  
> M: Don’t be smart.  
> S: That takes me back. [adopts creepy child voice]“Don’t be smart Sherlock, I’m the smart one.”  
> M [darkly]: I am the smart one.  
> S: I used to think I was an idiot.  
> M: Both of us thought you were an idiot, Sherlock. We had nothing else to go on, until we met other children.  
> S: Oh yes. That was a mistake.  
> M: Ghastly. What were they thinking of?  
> S: Probably something about trying to make friends.  
> M: Oh Yes. [sarcastic smile] Friends. Of course, you go in for that sort of thing now.  
> S: And you don’t? Ever?  
> M: If you seem slow to me, Sherlock, can you imagine what real people are like? I’m living in a world of goldfish.  
> S: Yes, but I’ve been away for two years.  
> M: So?  
> S: I don’t know. No, I thought perhaps you might have found yourself a…goldfish.  
> M: Change the subject. Now.


	2. The Proper Care and Feeding of Holmeses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly makes herself as useful as she can, but Anthea knows best.

The next couple of weeks pass in a similar vein. The little group of Sherlock’s hangers on are deemed in too much danger to be allowed to roam London unsupervised, so Molly spends a lot of time in the war room with Mrs Hudson and Mary, along with assorted secret service operatives. Mary’s background is revealed as she is consulted frequently about the operation, but her advanced pregnancy makes her too much of a liability in the field so she too is left behind. Molly and Mrs Hudson teach Mary how to play cribbage and set up a small gaming group in one corner of the room, inviting any other strays to come play with them.

The other usual occupant of the room is Mycroft Holmes himself, who is always among the first to arrive and one of the last to leave. The image of the stuffy, prissy civil servant straight out of ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ that Mycroft affects publicly is shed and Molly’s admiration of the man and the power he wields apparently effortlessly increases daily. 

Lestrade, Sherlock and John flit in and out of the command centre, providing intelligence from the ground and carrying out other clandestine activities. Sherlock likes to make rude comments about his brother’s physical abilities and fitness, which Molly soon realises upset the older Holmes more than he likes to admit. Molly however plays chess, and while Sherlock may be the hyperactive queen sweeping across the board that is London; she thinks Mycroft is the king and his isolation is more a case of not exposing your king in the fight. Mycroft is the central clearing point for all information, the orchestrator of alliances and the controller of the board for the white hats. He’s too powerful a weapon to risk being captured or eliminated and so must remain behind the front lines.

Molly’s also noted that while not as slender as his little brother, Mycroft fills his bespoke suits nicely and is fit for a man of his age. Superficially the brothers look little alike, but over time she can see the family resemblance more. Unlike many of the others, she finds the constant Holmesian sniping entertaining, especially when Sherlock doesn’t get the last word in.

Surprisingly it’s Mycroft’s PA who first notices Molly’s change in attitude. She introduces herself while Mycroft is offsite chairing a COBRA briefing and makes friendly overtures to the pathologist, who is surprised at the attention from the sleek woman. Molly has been desperate to make herself useful, but with little use for a pathologist so far, she has been reduced to mother-henning people with a vengeance. Nagging Sherlock to actually eat and sleep is almost a full-time job, and both John and Mycroft seem relieved that someone else is devoting time and effort to that task. Everyone else seems to treat this as a facet of Molly’s crush, but Molly is finding Sherlock’s bouts of utter self-centeredness childish rather than endearing now. Anthea on the other hand recruits her into looking after Holmes senior as well as junior.

Mycroft is genuinely surprised the next morning when for the first time Molly, rather than Anthea, slides a pot of tea and a croissant with lemon marmalade in front of him. He still manages to thank her politely, so Molly smiles brightly at him before bustling off to pour coffee down Sherlock’s throat and harass him into eating toast.

With Anthea’s quiet guidance, Molly learns how to read Mycroft like she once did Sherlock. She knows when to bring him Earl Grey (without milk) in a delicate china teapot, or a large mug of builder’s tea strong enough to dissolve a teaspoon, complete with three sugars and a stack of chocolate digestives. She nags him to eat as well, and snaps at Sherlock for teasing his brother when Mycroft positively inhales a plate of beef and mustard sandwiches and a slab of Battenberg after a gruelling fifteen-hour meeting with the CIA and the FBI. Mycroft’s brief stunned but grateful expression at her defence makes Molly positively beam.

That’s not to say that she’s not aware of Mycroft’s faults too. Molly takes little crap from either Holmes brother any more, but he is capable of incredible self-centeredness and arrogance. It helps that she finds his snark amusing rather than hurtful. It also helps that while he does lash out sometimes, Mycroft is aware enough to later be embarrassed about his less-than-gentlemanly behaviour and make some form of amends. Sherlock, on the other hand still careens through life with little awareness of the emotional wreckage he leaves behind unless it’s pointed out to him. These days Molly challenges Sherlock on it more, now she’s less invested in not driving him away. Oddly, Sherlock respects her changed attitude more than ever before.


	3. Moving Forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moriarty causes trouble. Molly escapes from the war-room. Anthea stirs trouble. Molly stirs tea.

With the aid of the Metropolitan police, the task force manages to thwart the initial sallies from Moriarty’s organisation with impressive effectiveness. A train crash, a fire in a tube station and three hijackings are prevented before they ever happen, but even the Holmes brothers aren’t omniscient and omnipotent. One night Molly is roused from her government safehouse bed and taken to Barts under escort. There she assists in the morgue as they deal with the horrific consequences of an exploding petrol tanker. She loses herself for two days with barely a break in the science and detail of the work to escape the horrors of rows of carbonised corpses. Anthea calls much later to see how she’s doing, and adds cryptically that Mr Holmes (Sherlock is ‘junior’ at best) had asked after her, since she wasn’t in Whitehall. Molly is almost dead on her feet, but she feels light as a feather when she hears that.

Ultimately as everyone digs in for a long campaign, Molly manages to argue her case for returning to work in the face of opposition from almost everyone except Mary. She’s eventually allowed to go back after an almighty row, but with a bodyguard. She finds the situation ridiculous, so she puts the young MI5 officers to work as gophers. It’s particularly amusing watching trained agents turn green when she performs an autopsy. She gleefully emails reports on the behaviour and shortcomings of her escort to Mycroft via Anthea and hopes that he finds them as entertaining to read as she did to write them.

Her only escape from the boredom of work-safehouse-work is when Anthea calls on her, which she does with surprising frequency. Molly had initially worried that she was treading on the glamorous agent’s territory, especially as Anthea was rarely found far from Mycroft’s side. Anthea disabused her of that, by talking about her hapless fiancé (a sweetly geeky cryptographer); she’s actually Mycroft’s chief bodyguard, though the role of PA provides excellent cover. Anthea declares she finds Molly ‘refreshing’ and admires her ability to manage Sherlock, whom Anthea finds deeply irritating. Anthea feeds her stories and information from the inside, which make Molly blush and stammer (and Anthea positively cackle).

‘He likes you, you know’ Anthea confides one day over lattes and lemon cake. Molly stares at her in shock. “He won’t say anything, but I can tell. He worries about you and I can tell when he’s reading your emails, because he smirks at them.” Molly is sure she’s the colour of a tomato by now. “He’d like to see you again”.

Molly is not surprised when at the end of her next late shift, a black Jaguar pulls up and the driver requests her attendance. She’s ushered into the war room, which is dim apart from the light from the monitors and mostly unoccupied. Hunched over the table, jacketless and with shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows Mycroft is still working away. This late, his usually slicked back hair is beginning to escape and Molly bites her lip at sight of the single curl drifting over his forehead. She’d wondered if he was hiding curls like Sherlock’s under the layers of product, and she’d been right. Anthea winks, puts a finger to her lips and pads across the room to hand Molly a bone china Union Jack mug then gestures to her boss. Taking the mug, Molly approaches the oblivious Mycroft and slides it carefully into his field of view.

“Thank you, An-“ he begins, then stops, looks up and smiles, the first genuine smile Molly has seen. “Molly. Thank you, Molly.” Molly can’t help but smile back as Mycroft positively lights up at her presence. She reaches out towards him, but the moment is interrupted as the double doors bang open and Sherlock barges in accompanied by what looks like half of Scotland Yard. Molly virtually jumps away and the shutters slam across Mycroft’s expression once more as he shifts back into business mode. However, Molly has seen the genuine feeling underneath and she can’t help the smile lifting the corners of her mouth, even as Sherlock gives her an assessing look.

The conversation that follows, as Sherlock and his team give their report is very odd. Sherlock manages to work goldfish into the conversation several times, which bemuses almost everyone but seems to fluster Mycroft and annoy him to the point where he virtually growls at his brother to shut up about them. Molly files away the information on that bit of brotherly needling and tries not to let on that she finds the little show of dominance more than a bit of a turn on. Judging by Sherlock’s startled expression and Anthea’s smirk, she’s not doing a good job. She daren’t even glance at Mycroft himself.


	4. Reminders of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pet shops, plans and little brothers.
> 
> Sentimentality is not an advantage, but Mycroft just can't help it sometimes.

The next day, Molly makes herself visit a pet shop. She spends several minutes perusing toys, eventually setting on a cat-nip scented stuffed mouse for Toby who is still disgruntled at being relocated along with his owner. However the true object of her visit is to be found in a completely different section of the large store.

Having made her purchases, she hands over the next stage of her mission to her accomplice Anthea. The svelte PA had laughed heartily when Molly had explained the plan and been delighted to offer her assistance.

* * *

Late that evening Sherlock returns to find his brother sitting in the dark at his desk, elbows on the desktop, chin on his hands, staring intently into the illuminated spherical fish tank that now has pride of place. Mycroft has an odd little smile on his face as he watches a shoal of small, brightly coloured fish flit between the weeds. Sherlock picks up the card that apparently came with the aquarium and snorts at the short message ‘To keep you company’ inscribed in Molly’s distinctive handwriting.

“I see you’ve found your goldfish” he notes, drily.

Mycroft looks up at his younger brother, the smile still lifting the corners of his mouth “Oh, they’re much more special than goldfish, Sherlock”, he says. “They’re mollies.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/aquarium-fish-supplies.cfm?c=830+1101 for images of mollies


End file.
